Hey there!

Like most of us, I find myself needing to up the ante equipment wise at the home office. I've landed a nice setup with monitors and a HyperX Quadcast mic, I'm waiting for a mechanical keyboard to land, as well as a nice, ergonomic mouse with extra buttons to minimize shifting hands from mouse to keyboard.

What I don't have is a nice camera. Sure, we all dream about that HDR 4K 60fps sweetness, but my budget is nowhere near that. I also see that the market is sucked dry for conventional webcams, especially the nicer ones like the Logitech 922, which to be honest, is also a bit pricey.

I am looking for creative, good alternatives that will work well on Ubuntu 18.04 onwards.

My own thoughts so far has been to use my mobile phone, as that camera is better than the one in my laptop, but the software solutions I have come across sucks in some way, if they work at all.

I have also peeked at Action Cameras and Camcorders, but those camcorders get pricey fast. I still have a hope regarding actioncams, but their documentation is often very lacking with regards to supporting live streaming video to a computer over a cable, as in allowing the computer to use the camera as a video source. Another issue I've read about is that many of the actioncams has a lens leaning heavily towards a fish eye view for more snappy action videos.

Anyone out there have experience with using alternative cameras as webcams for video calls, as well as for screencast recording? Ideally Full HD 1080p @ >=30fps and HDR, but HDR is less important. Cheap 1080p actioncam without pronounced fish eye is possibly my best bet, but impossible to find reading specs in webshops...

Any suggestions or alternatives? Please share your thoughts and/or setup in the comments.

Thanks!